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Particular judgment, according to Christian eschatology, is the divine judgment that a departed (dead) person undergoes immediately after death, in contradistinction to the general judgment (or Last Judgment) of all people at the end of the world. There are few, if any, Old Testament or apocryphal writings that could be construed as implying particular judgment. The first century Jewish pseudepigraphal writing known as the Testament of Abraham includes a clear account of particular judgment, in which souls go either through the wide gate of destruction or the narrow gate of salvation. By this account, only one in seven thousand earn salvation. The Testament of Abraham is regarded as scripture by Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews, but not by any other Jewish or Christian group. Many Christians believe the dead are judged immediately after death and await judgment day in peace or torment because of the way they interpret several key New Testament passages. In , it appears that Christ represents Lazarus and Dives as receiving their respective rewards immediately after death. The penitent thief was promised: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." () Paul the Apostle generally depicts death as sleep awaiting the resurrection of a glorified body (), and (in 2 Corinthians 5) longs to be absent from the body that he may be present to the Lord, evidently understanding death to be the entrance into his reward at an unspecified time (cf. ). Some Christians believe that death is a period of dormancy, or sleep in the body, or an intermediate state, on Earth, or in the Bosom of Abraham, in which there is no consciousness and no Heavenly activity has yet begun – no judgment, no trip to heaven nor hell – based on their interpretation of the following scriptures: "The dead know not anything ... Their love, their hatred, and their envy is now perished" (); "In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave, who shall give thee thanks?" (); "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence" (); "The grave cannot praise thee: death cannot celebrate thee" ().

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Christian mortalism

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